Player Features and Ideas Discussion

How challenging would it be to implement a Directional Scanner Reticle over your ship to pin point what you are scanning towards?


The issue is as follows - to teach new pilots (and for even veteran pilots) how to use the Directional scanner most pilots don't seem to realize that they scan in the direction of their camera - but it's also hard to teach them how to "pin point" that 5 degree scan or larger.

What I've always told my pilots to do is to left click on their own ship which brings up the 'white square' at the center of the ship. This works for 80% of ships whose white square is the actual center of the ship - but a few ships, specifically like the Slasher (Claw+Stiletto) and Thorax (All Variations) and some more ships don't have that white square at the center...


What would be pretty awesome if easy to implement would be some kind of scanner "reticle" that lets you know where you are scanning at the center of your screen. It could be a simple 2d overlay that appears at the center of your screen to help you gauge where your scanner is, and maybe some "marks" to help you communicate and identify the scanner width on the axis.


On the other hand, a reason a 3D cone would be interesting would be because some people are spatially handicapped and often don't realize as they're learning to use the D-scanner that 90 degrees is actually a scanner range MUCH larger than their viewing screen. However, at that point it's difficult to represent without covering the whole screen with this overlay, so would be useless.


More realistically, a 2D "bullseye" would be all it would really take - perhaps a little button you can press on your D-scanner to activate this overlay that would help you eyeball where you are really scanning.

Thoughts?

+1

Make it a bit of a mini-game (I don't have a better word)...

essentially, you get a new D-scan window with a top-down view

It has the "scan area" shown in 2d view (with tickmarks, etc. These are based on the ship, rather than the system, so 0/360 is ALWAYS the front, 180 is ALWAYS the back and 90/270 are ALWAYS the left/right sides of the ship). Think a RADAR screen.

you'd set the d-scan the same way as now, but the radar screen would let you see the arc you're scanning ... extra points if it lights up with "pings" as you see other objects (no other use that light shows ... unless you decide to slowboat it 1 AU away to see if that ping really is the POS you think should be there).

The sidemap browser already does something similar actually, but it's too bulky to pop open the sidemap browser and it's not that effective when working in 3D Space and difficult to really see what you are scanning towards with all the objects in space.


The "Alt" does work, but it's the same as left clicking your ship - it's not always at the center of the ship depending on the ship, so unreliable.


I know a friend who I think actually stuck a piece of tape on his screen for marking the center for D-Scanning... I think that tells us something is wrong

I also noticed on SISI you've removed the markings on the D-scanner - although fine for awesome EVE Veterans - I have to say that it's going to be a ***** to have to tell each person "360 degrees is on the right, 5 degrees is on the left" and I know there's a tooltip, but that's not sufficient IMHO when you're approaching it from the perspective that you have to teach 500 people how to use the d-scanner and they're going to look at this slider they've never seen before and not have a clue how to use it. ;p

Personally, I think that the whole slider needs to change into something easier to use in more hectic situations. The sliders on the left between 5 and 15 degrees are pretty tight together. I'm sure you awesome UI designers can come up with a more appealing way for us to interact with the d-scanner!



The Reticle is less for me personally - after using the D-scanner for 5+ years, it's pretty much second nature to know how to scan with it pretty much in any situation, but think of the little noobies!

That's an interesting idea, make a reticle and flare compensation in one....

+1

Also, as mentioned, flare compensation for star brightness would be very useful.

+1.. does seem like a "dummy shoulda dunnit already" kind of thing... Nice idea!